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Other Projects => Other Games => Topic started by: Yolan on March 29, 2020, 09:46:04 am

Title: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Yolan on March 29, 2020, 09:46:04 am
Last Oasis is looking pretty neat.

A little bit Kenshi, a little bit Mad Max. Some Worlds Adrift with some survival aspects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYxroMaUpw

They are getting review bombed at the moment because of their servers haven't handled the player count (maybe all this isolating we are doing atm), but I'm looking forward to getting stuck in once things start to get sorted out.

With that in mind, I'm planning on setting up a little clan to play around with with a few friends. But I thought there
might be some Bay12 people who are interested.

The Dune Dwellers. Or, if we cant get that name, maybe The Filthy Casuals.

Discord channel. (https://discord.gg/gUU9pDw)

I'm in Australia myself, so I'll probably be playing in the Australian / Asian servers, depending on how ping is with roaming further afield.
If you were interested in the game and wanted some people to play with, drop on by and say hi!









Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Ozyton on March 29, 2020, 10:36:05 am
Are they getting review bombed for servers specifically? The negative reviews I've read have been about the most expected behavior from a PvP multiplayer game like this: get a massive group, troll around, and kill everyone on sight. Playing with a smaller group or even solo is apparently not even an option.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Yolan on March 29, 2020, 10:39:22 am

Seems to be a bit of back and forth on that issue too. I think the current mixed reviews are mostly a result of the servers though.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Shooer on March 29, 2020, 01:18:22 pm
I picked this up yesterday and after 5 attempts and an hour total of trying yesterday and today I've given up and got a refund.  Just not worth trying anymore.

I might check it out again when it's playable in a week.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Sartain on March 29, 2020, 04:14:29 pm
Quote from: Shooer on March 29, 2020, 01:18:22 pm
I picked this up yesterday and after 5 attempts and an hour total of trying yesterday and today I've given up and got a refund.  Just not worth trying anymore.

I might check it out again when it's playable in a week.

What exactly did you give up on trying? Connection isssues? Community? Something else entirely?
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Shooer on March 29, 2020, 04:29:14 pm
Connecting.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on March 29, 2020, 05:52:44 pm
Aesthetically and mechanically, it looks pretty much identical to Conan Exiles.

The major gimmick is the steampunk cars capable of growing huge to transport both players and their buildings through an ever-shifting landscape. Minor gimmick is grappling hooks, which make movement a bit more fun.

As someone who has been burned by bad survival games too many times, I'm wary. This looks like it could be fun with a group though.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Yolan on March 29, 2020, 09:52:00 pm

I also like the idea that the maps are all temporary. I'm not interested so much in grinding away at a base that can be griefed when you arent even online.

Being able to log off and keep everything safe makes it look more appealing to a more casual player like me.

Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on March 29, 2020, 10:31:19 pm
Apparently the connection issues got so bad that they have taken the servers offline for 1 week while they call in a team of specialists to figure out what's going wrong and hopefully fix it.

This might be one of the worst MMO launches ever.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Xardalas on March 30, 2020, 12:11:02 am
Quote from: Folly on March 29, 2020, 10:31:19 pm
Apparently the connection issues got so bad that they have taken the servers offline for 1 week while they call in a team of specialists to figure out what's going wrong and hopefully fix it.

This might be one of the worst MMO launches ever.


Na.  That'd be Atlas. At least they shut it down for a week so they stop getting bombarded with bad reviews and offered refunds.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: EuchreJack on March 30, 2020, 06:53:27 pm
I liked the part in the video where the guys hid behind a tree.  It was hilarious.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on April 05, 2020, 03:19:08 pm
Servers seem to be back up.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Yolan on April 05, 2020, 10:09:04 pm
Jumped in for a few hours last night. Did get ganked once I left the starter oasis, but once I rotated to a far corner of the map away from the trading post and connection to the starter oasis I was safe to build a dingy walker. Looking forward to playing more.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Sartain on April 06, 2020, 12:13:56 pm
Well, I caved and bought it. So far it seems fun, lots of things to do and the environs are pretty cool. No massive gank-fleets yet though I've heard the rumours, played for 8 hours straight and nobody bothered me except some guy named Roman who apparently killed me during a hard crash and bashed on my walker a bit. Other than that me and a few other newbies helped each other out with some of the "questline" missions, I managed to find the Trade Station (which seemed weird and confusing) and I realised that if you click the categories on the immediate tech screen there's actually a tech tree  :D
So yeah, so far it's fun, if there's any other Europeans I guess we could convoy
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Xardalas on April 06, 2020, 08:33:00 pm
If we get enough people together, we should get a clan running on it.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Yolan on April 06, 2020, 11:44:42 pm

So far I've put in quite a few hours and only been killed twice. Lost very little each time. Just be sure to store your valuables in your ship hold. And if you want to avoid getting attacked keep to the quiet oasis with less players, and / or rotate to parts of the map that are further from the trading out post or the sides that are next to busy oasis and see more traffic.

 
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on April 09, 2020, 03:56:57 am
I joined up with a large clan.

Most of my time in game has been spent with extremely disorganized groups, which has been frustrating and tedious. But on the few occasions when I managed to find a smaller more focused group, we had fun building stuff and cruising around the desert, looting resources from monkey men.

I've only been ganked once. 3 meanies came up behind me while I was soloing some Rupu's, and proceeded to flog me to death. I had more than a dozen clan allies less than a minute away, and I called for help in Discord immediately. They then proceeded to spend about 5 minutes trying to figure out where the weapons were and which boat they should take, while I was respawning and getting spawncamped. Eventually my allies did show up though, and managed to slaughter one of my aggressors while the other two ran for the hills. We then proceeded to dismantle their big boat. Naturally, they started complaining in map chat about how we zerged them with overwhelming numbers; as if they hadn't done the exact same thing to me.

Hard Hex-tiles were released today, and we were already planning to claim one immediately. Unfortunately, the hard tile nearest to us had no less than 4 other large clans who also wanted to lay claim, and we ended up in one big fight that was fun but ultimately a loss for us.
So, after some scouting we found another tile without any serious competition and we moved in. I insisted on bringing my little Firefly for sentimental reasons. It only had capacity for 80 water, and the trip required 1100. So I ended up spending a couple of hours making short hops to intervening tiles, until I eventually arrived. Once there I helped build several Stilettos for my group members who had left their walkers behind, and then the entire clan worked together to build half a dozen giant Buffalo's, which we took into battle against some giant enemy crabs, because why not.

Having fun so far. Hope this game continues to entertain.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Vivalas on April 09, 2020, 10:19:29 am
Sounds like fun, I might get it. I'm interested in forming a Bay12 group
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Xardalas on April 09, 2020, 02:35:37 pm
I'm part of a small six man group if anyone else from the forums wants to join, their welcome. We do a lil pvp.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on April 11, 2020, 12:04:03 am
Tonight, our clan with roughly 125 people on our tile, suddenly noticed that the tile had over 400 people in it.

...there's always a bigger fish.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on April 14, 2020, 06:54:08 pm
That last event seems to be the result of our leaders failing some charisma checks and managing to piss off literally every clan around us. So we were forced to seek out new allies in distant lands, and migrate. We are now part of an alliance with several thousand members. All of the Buffalos and a few other larger boats made the trip in a caravan, and quoted roughly 4000 water used to make the trip, each. Those of us with smaller boats just abandoned ship and respawned in the new lands, starting over with nothing.


I've been driving around in a Firefly since I started, and I loved those little boats. Mostly because I found that I can abuse the Rupu AI, getting a large swarm of them chasing me, then duck behind my Firefly and have them running into the tail of the Firefly, unable to figure out how to go around it; then I can use a nice long quarterstaff to sweep their legs a few times and I'm left with a pile of loot to mop up.
Unfortunately, I was constantly running into storage issues, trying to fit all this loot inside the tiny Firefly. So I finally broke down and built myself a big-boy boat; a Stiletto. And I love it way more than the Firefly. All of those little bumps that sent the Firefly into a flip, the Stiletto just strides over them without a hitch. Combined with the speed, this makes getting around the map so much more practical.
This has forced me to learn how to fight the Rupu's properly, which was a bit of a learning curve. It's a bit slower, but much more enjoyable now that I got the hang of it.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on April 21, 2020, 06:33:10 am
Well, our new map had two issues. First, there was no temple, which made it difficult to craft Tablets and unlock better tech. Also there was a lot of lag, which we believed to be caused by an excess of idle walkers in the lobby left over from some previous owners.

So we moved again. Not very far this time, to a map with a nice Temple for us to use. We set up some good sturdy clay bases, surrounded by Rupus we had abducted and trained to sling rocks at intruders.
There was one major issue with our new home however...it was infested with squirrels. Flying squirrels, actually. It seems that one of the neighboring clans did not like us moving in, and rather than confront us directly, they hired a mercenary faction to harass us. These squirrels did not use any walkers, instead getting around using grapples and glide-suits, supplied by the clan who hired them. And they wielded an endless supply of sharp katana's, also provided by the employers. And of course they never fought fairly, seeking out only lone farmers and dispatching them with the element of surprise and overwhelming numbers, then disappearing into the wind before any retaliation could be mounted.
This continued for about a week before one of our members discovered their hidey-hole, where all of their spare weapons and suits had been hidden, using exploits to clip their chests inside a wall where they were almost impossible to find. We led a raid and claimed all of their gear and spoils, and have not heard from the squirrels since then.

To celebrate, today we crewed two Stiletto's and stocked up on fire arrows, and we went out and burned down one of the opposing clan's Proxy's on a lightly defended tile, removing their control over a chunk of territory. Then we went to another lightly defended map and burned down a second proxy. As we were making our escape, we turned a corner and found ourselves face to face with a Falco, easily larger in size than both of our Stiletto's combined, and with a crew to match. To make matters worse, the Falco was faster than us, so there was no hope of escape.
So we fought. And...they made some tactical mistakes. Video is here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/598199596 (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/598199596)

See if you can catch me standing around being useless throughout most of the fight.
I was actually moving gear and supplies around inside the ship's hatch, to ensure people respawning on our boat would be well equipped and ready to continue fighting. Also ensuring that there was room for our people to drop off spoils looted from enemy combatants, so those enemies would not be able to reclaim it.

Later, we got together a bunch of tiny Spider walkers and cheap weapons/armor, and dove directly into the heart of the enemy base. We snuck around like thieves in the night, smashing workstations and breaking open chests. Honestly we probably could have produced more loot working back on our home tile, and it didn't really hurt the enemy much. And of course it ended with us splitting up as we got chased off the map by much bigger boats, and only most of us made it out alive. But it was so much fun~
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Knave on April 21, 2020, 09:21:04 am
Thanks for sharing all the stories! This feels like Eve to me, where I love hearing people's exploits but then I play and get too scared to get involved with any of the pvp alliance main content :D
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: EuchreJack on April 21, 2020, 09:21:48 am
Quote from: Knave on April 21, 2020, 09:21:04 am
Thanks for sharing all the stories! This feels like Eve to me, where I love hearing people's exploits but then I play and get too scared to get involved with any of the pvp alliance main content :D
+1 to that
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on April 22, 2020, 06:16:58 am
The enemy clan retaliated tonight, attacking our Proxy in our home-tile. They rolled in with two fully crewed Falco's, and about a dozen smaller ships. We mounted our best defenses, and managed to run out the clock on the Proxy's one hour of daily vulnerable time, ensuring we would keep our home for another day.
There was a lot of lag, and more than a few accusations of the enemy clan hacking. I don't know if those accusations were accurate, or if perhaps we were simply less prepared, or maybe just unlucky, but in the end it was us who were forced to flee the battlefield and they who were gloating in chat channels. After a few victory laps, most of their troops returned to whence they came, leaving only 1 Falco to roam around our tile, picking off anyone who dared to stick their heads out.
We regrouped, scrounged up some sets of gear from hidden reserves, repaired a few fallen boats from the edges of the battlefield and rode out to face the enemy Falco. They slung poisonous gas bombs at us, coating the desert in a neon green mist of death. But we persisted, tearing the wings and legs off their Falco and then trading steel with it's crew, until eventually they ran out of water and could no longer fight. Then we burned open the Falco's hull and reclaimed from it's cargo hold much of the plunder they had taken from us in the previous battle.

Overall, not our most glorious day. But we held on to our home, and showed we're still in the fight.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: EuchreJack on April 22, 2020, 03:10:50 pm
Never celebrate victory until you've won, your opponents apparently didn't know that.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: JimboM12 on April 22, 2020, 03:24:35 pm
im tempted to get this game on a sale. i consider myself at an average level of skill with these directional melee engine games. im a fair hand at mordhau, where i (recently with lots of practice due to covid19 lol) found myself placing in the upper quarter of the leaderboard if im not playing a meme peasant build. the other one is, of course, the mount and blade games where i find myself in the upper half of the board on bannerlord. you could throw kingdom come in there but its singleplayer only and more dependent on rpg mechanics than actual skill due to only having set attack directions and not swing speed or anything.

but this does seem to be a game where teamwork makes the dream work and while i love that, i do like to wander sometimes and have peaceful solo times mining and crafting. so 2 questions before i decide; is there any crafting and are solo players really ganked that much?
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on April 22, 2020, 05:30:02 pm
Solo ganking absolutely does happen. You can mitigate this either by playing on a low-population map, or by joining a large clan who aggressively root out any who intrude on their territory. The former option would limit you to lower difficulty tiles, where only low-tier resources are available. And the latter would of course depend upon your ability to back a winning horse, as it were.

For crafting, you have a fairly wide variety of weapons and armor, with varied mitigation and movespeed on the armors, and length/speed/damage on the weapons, and varied material costs. So you could certainly find kits that you like and then figure out ways to specialize in securing the resources needed to craft those kits, until you are able to mass produce them.
There is also the quality game. World resources occasionally spawn with various qualities. You can harvest these quality resources, use them to craft better tools which are capable of harvesting higher quality resources to make better tools, eventually make quality workstations to build quality subcomponents for better tools and weapons and armor. And then cry when some ganker comes along and takes your best stuff. But learn from that, and build a more secure base where you keep a stockpile of quality tools so that you can always rebuild.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on April 23, 2020, 02:44:11 am
Not my team, but here is a short video of someone stealing an absolutely massive amount of resources from OwO, one of the mega-clans that has occasionally pestered us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqp3H5ibfao (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqp3H5ibfao)

OwO has occasionally visited our map with small groups who just ran around ganking solo's, but never stayed long enough to be a serious problem. Tonight they made their first big move bringing a heavily armed Falco against us. They learned the hard way that we have gotten a lot of experience bringing down Falco's recently.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: EuchreJack on April 23, 2020, 04:52:05 pm
Well, I guess a solo can indeed get their revenge.  Although I dunno if there was anyone else acting as a decoy.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on April 24, 2020, 04:21:59 am
I can only assume that one of those mega-clans we tussled with must have put a price on our heads, because today we were attacked by no less than 6 clans we had never heard of before.

Only one of the new clans rode in hard, with two big boats. It was a bloody fight, but in the end both of their boats burned to the ground, and in their cargo holds we found far more loot than we had lost during the fight.

The other clans were all small groups of griefers, who were chased off without undo fuss. Except for one clan, known as 'The Farmers', who employed guerilla tactics against us. They would run up as a group and attack our bases, then as soon as any opposition showed up they disappeared into the treetops, only to emerge again as soon as it was clear. We picked off a few of them, but they came back, fully geared. We combed the forests and ferreted out 5 of their respawn points, but still they kept coming.
As the hour grew late, about half of us had given up and left to sleep or pursue more fruitful endeavors elsewhere. The rest of us were just about to do the same, when suddenly this little group of griefers turned into more than 50 people, pouring out of the trees and swarming over us. Without boats for us to burn, we would have had difficulty countering them at full strength. As our numbers were already diminished, it was utterly hopeless.

I'm not looking forward to seeing what remains in the morning.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Aoi on April 24, 2020, 05:49:14 am
Quote from: Folly on April 24, 2020, 04:21:59 am
I'm not looking forward to seeing what remains in the morning.

On the other hand, I'm quite interested in hearing the continuation. The stories are enjoyed!
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: EuchreJack on April 24, 2020, 01:15:25 pm
Quote from: Aoi on April 24, 2020, 05:49:14 am
Quote from: Folly on April 24, 2020, 04:21:59 am
I'm not looking forward to seeing what remains in the morning.

On the other hand, I'm quite interested in hearing the continuation. The stories are enjoyed!

Indeed, although I worry it might be the cause of the most recent attack.
EDIT: Yup, you're on page 2 of Google.  Hello bullsye.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: JimboM12 on April 24, 2020, 10:20:13 pm
i ended up getting it. made it through the tutorial until it got to the part where i have to raid the weird mutant ape people's villages to smash urns but i had too much fun randomly dueling them and pimping my ride. im gonna love upgrading my firefly walker into a super speed bike.

the combat is somehow less and more refined than mount and blade, which is weird. the timing feels so right but the animations make it seem fluid and clunky someway. hard to describe but fun nonetheless. i had to log off to play with friends in another game but i made it safely to the edge of a map and logged off, so i should be safe for now.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Ibid Straydrink on April 24, 2020, 10:51:19 pm
This is that game where you do drugs to get inspiration for improbable walking landships, right?

Earth stops moving, however will we survive?

Guy taking a hit off a bong with cactus fruit derived LSD in the water: "I know what we must do."
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on April 29, 2020, 05:28:31 am
In my last post, several days ago, I had logged off amidst a swarm of angry Farmers marauding across my home map on foot. They beat up any outdoor workstations and small chests, and anything else they could break with their clubs and axes. But they stopped short of building siege weapons to break into our bases or burn down boats. That kind of thing is difficult to do without bringing your own boats full of supplies and mounted ballistas. The lack of transportation would also have made it difficult to carry away much loot. So, in the end, all they did was teach some of our newer members a lesson most of us have had to learn the hard way; keep your good stuff inside bases, and send boats to the lobby when you log out.

The following day was relatively peaceful. After an uneventful Proxy defense period, we got word from the top that our closest major enemy clan had experienced some drama amongst their leadership, resulting in a major chunk of their population abandoning ship, and most of the rest being left in disarray. Another major clan that occasionally pestered us had just been hit by a wave of attacks from the Chinese, and a third opposing clan was being hit by our allies. So basically nobody had time for us.

We did get a brief visit from the Flying Squirrel gang, whom we had not seen in a while. They scattered and didn't come back after we rode up on them just once. Still, their appearance, coupled with our newfound free time, prompted my team to move our Clay Base. When we first arrived on this map we constructed a sturdy clay base amidst some tall rocks, and established a perimeter of barricades at the cracks in the rocks, with the assumption that this would make it difficult for enemy boats to approach us. And indeed we had never once been attacked by boats. However, every single foot-raider on our tile seemed to immediately be attracted to our base because they could easily grapple up to the top of the rocks, drop down on people coming in and out of the base, steal whatever loot they were carrying, then disappear as quickly as they arrived. And if we did chase them off the rocks, they would just disappear into the forest that surrounded our mountain home. So, we packed our things and rebuilt the Clay Base in the middle of a nice open valley, with nothing around for attackers to grapple for a quick escape.

And of course, as soon as we finished setting up in our new location, the Chinese rolled in with half a dozen medium boats, and came straight for us. The clan came to our defense immediately. The Chinese had great numbers, but their boats and equipment were of low quality, and they clearly did not know how to use them. We dispatched their boats easily.
Then they sent in more boats. And we destroyed those as well. But during the third wave, while we were dealing with the larger boats, a fleet of smaller spider-walkers flanked our Clay Base and burned a hole in the wall. They made off with several boxes of our best materials, and all we got from them was a pile of cheap boat wreckage and a few beat-up sets of basic weapons and armor.

The next day was quiet, and yesterday started out the same. After our peaceful Proxy defense, we decided to take some of our warboats out and look for a fight. We soon found two clans, neither of whom we were familiar with, fighting each other, each side sporting a fully manned Falco. We managed to stay hidden until one of them triumphed over the other, and then we rolled in and dispatched the victor, claiming the cargo holds of both wrecked boats for our own. Not the most glorious battle, but it was a lot of plunder.

As we returned home with our spoils, we found that only half of our boats were able to get into our home map before it was population-capped. Those who got in found themselves facing off against a raiding party of half a dozen large boats, and twice again as many medium boats. It quickly turned into a battle of attrition, with both sides burning through precious lifegiving water and kits of weapons and armor at an alarming rate...but in the end, we just had too many of our resources waiting in queue, and not enough on the map, so we were forced to admit defeat. Fortunately, our Proxy Defense hour had already passed earlier, so they were unable to take the map from us. All they got was a bunch of damaged gear and a few boxes of basic resources they had plundered from our bases; we had learned from previous encounters to keep the more valuable resources safe in the cargo hold of lobbied ships.

We did notice that the enemy raiding us had left the Proxy on their home tile vulnerable. Strange that they had chosen this time to raid us. But since half of our warboats were unable to get in to defend our home, we decided to send them out on the attack instead. We met only minimal defenses and were able to burn the enemy Proxy fairly easily, removing their official claim to the territory and depriving them of considerable resource income.

Unfortunately, they did have backup measures in place, unlike any we had encountered before. They dropped down several bases around us, and just respawned from the facilities within endlessly, always equipped with high-tier weapons and armor. We fought well, but ultimately our boats had fewer respawns and kits, so we were forced to abandoned the damaged boats and flee with the rest. Taking their proxy was a symbolic victory to be sure, but it only cost them a small percent of their resources, while we lost over half our fleet.

Of course, most of the boats we lost were lower quality boats we had built early on, and were honestly looking for an excuse to replace them. Tomorrow we begin rebuilding a much stronger fleet, utilizing all that we have learned from every battle.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Yoink on April 30, 2020, 04:36:27 am
Holy crap. These stories are fantastic. Thanks, Folly!
The video was quite entertaining, too, like a huge, chaotic mashup of Kenshi, Planetside (which I've played only briefly) and a large-scale multiplayer vehicle combat game of your choosing (since the genre has ballooned in recent years but I still haven't really played any).   
It'd be kind of nice if the actual hand-to-hand combat was as satisfying to watch as that of Kenshi (or various other games in the same ballpark), but it still looks like it'd be pretty damn fun to play.   
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Aoi on April 30, 2020, 05:26:12 am
Quote from: Folly on April 29, 2020, 05:28:31 am
And of course, as soon as we finished setting up in our new location, the Chinese rolled in with half a dozen medium boats, and came straight for us. The clan came to our defense immediately. The Chinese had great numbers, but their boats and equipment were of low quality, and they clearly did not know how to use them. We dispatched their boats easily.
Then they sent in more boats. And we destroyed those as well. But during the third wave, while we were dealing with the larger boats, a fleet of smaller spider-walkers flanked our Clay Base and burned a hole in the wall. They made off with several boxes of our best materials, and all we got from them was a pile of cheap boat wreckage and a few beat-up sets of basic weapons and armor.

Was that really a case of 'did not know how to use them'? Because it reminds me of what one group did in another game once... basically:
Spoiler: Since it isn't directly related... (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: EuchreJack on May 01, 2020, 03:29:11 am
My guess is that there must have been a spy (on both accounts).

1) Last Oasis Clan: How did they know exactly where to hit?
2) The siege that actually was: How did they know which siege was going to be lightly defended?
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Aoi on May 01, 2020, 05:51:05 am
Quote from: EuchreJack on May 01, 2020, 03:29:11 am
My guess is that there must have been a spy (on both accounts).

1) Last Oasis Clan: How did they know exactly where to hit?
2) The siege that actually was: How did they know which siege was going to be lightly defended?

I don't think they knew in advance, but it's not unreasonable to expect defenders to get sick of arranging their schedule to allow for the defense if it was a non-starter over and over. As far as I recall, it was also the first meta-game attack of that nature so it caught people off-guard.

As for Last Oasis... assuming they weren't just bad and lucky or cheating to some degree (spy), I'd guess the first few attacks were to push deep to act as recon and see if they can spot probable targets, and then falling back as a feint.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on May 01, 2020, 03:02:07 pm
Spies are an unfortunate reality in clans like this. We have well over 100 members, and a very high turnover rate. Members get burned out quickly when they are fighters who feel there's too much time grinding and not enough time fighting, or grinders who spend a lot of time grinding and then lose it all in a quick one-sided encounter. It's not a game genre for everyone.
Honestly, the only way our group has survived is thanks to a dedicated HR person who barely even plays the game because he just spends all day interviewing applicants and shuffling people between teams to keep them populated. That guy is literally amazing.
But with so many people coming and going, it's impossible to ensure they are all properly vetted, or monitor them at all times. Every day it seems we have a new case of someone who logged out with their boat or base shared with the clan, and came back the next day with all of their resources stolen despite no signs of forced entry. And we have caught more than a few culprits in the act and dispatched them, but it keeps happening.
There have also been plenty of instances of groups of farmers heading out to look for resources, only to immediately be met by a raiding party as soon as they are beyond the protection of our home forces. These are things we have come to expect, and all we can do is remain vigilant.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: EuchreJack on May 05, 2020, 06:28:17 pm
Hm, I'm thinking one of the Kenshi modders plays Last Oasis Clan:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on May 07, 2020, 03:39:02 pm
This game seems interesting, but what is the time commitment like and is it worth the $?
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on May 07, 2020, 08:42:08 pm
Compared to other survival games, the time commitment is a bit more lenient because you can safely log your character, your ride, and your base out whenever you need to go do RL stuff. If you get into clan stuff you'll probably have a Proxy to defend, with a 1 hour window at the same time each day, so that requires a bit more commitment.

Is it worth the $? It's an EA title getting regular updates. Right now I'd say barely worth the $, but getting better all the time.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on May 11, 2020, 03:27:18 am
We had some quiet time after the big content patch. The patch included a bunch of cosmetic stuff, 1 new walker, some small quality-of-life changes, and some major performance boosts. It also included an intermittent server crash which made the game pretty much unplayable for a couple of days until it got fixed. They also banned a bunch of cheaters during the patch, and those cheaters were salty about it; as soon as the server crashes got fixed, they began DDOS'ing, rendering the game unplayable for a few more days. But eventually we did return to normalcy, and the Last Oasis was much better off.

Some drama in my Clan's Alliance resulted in the Alliance disbanding. Several other Clans and Alliances in the area suffered the same fate at the same time, both friendly and unfriendly. A bit suspicious how the timing of that worked out.
Amidst this unrest, another big alliance decided to make their move, taking over all the map tiles in our area. They rolled in heavy 2 hours before our proxy defense, before many of our fighters were online, and population-locked the tile. As the Proxy-defense time drew closer they began engaging, and we did our best to defend. We took down a few of their boats, but ultimately we were just too heavily outnumbered, and in the end we lost our Proxy along with about a third of our fleet.

Needing a new home and new allies, we decided to make another big move, from the west coast of America to the east coast of America. Some of you may remember that this is where we began our journey. We picked a hard tile with only a very small clan who didn't even bother to defend, and we took over.
Unfortunately, we had been there less than a day before someone(we still don't know whom, or if the accusations were even true) used a racial slur against one of our new neighbors, who then called in their friends to attack us. We were still moving half of our already depleted fleet, so we didn't have much to defend with, and we lost what little we did have.
We still have our farming boats, and a few warboats to protect them, so we can rebuild. But we need a tile to rebuild upon, and it seems the neighbors are not inclined to let us use this one. So the leaders called a meeting to discuss what to do. The meeting went long. It went very long. And 5 hours later, the leaders finally came back to us with some dire news...

While all of this was going on, our intelligence department was learning that the Chinese have just assembled an army of over 7000 Nomads, brought together under one banner, with the sole purpose of conquering every map tile in North America. There is always a bigger fish.
They are expected to begin moving within the week. Even if the fractured Alliances of North America were to unite they would still be heavily outnumbered. And considering the tensions between these alliances, any treaty is highly unlikely, even in the face of certain doom.

Our current plan is to migrate to western Europe and try to regroup there. Of course there are going to be a lot of other Americans wanting to do the same thing, and there are already Europeans in that area who are unlikely to give up their land easily, but it's our only viable option.
With our current diminished fighting capacity, it is vital that we find new allies as soon as possible. The fate of our clan currently rests in the hands of a diplomatic office with a sketchy history.
Gods help us.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: EuchreJack on May 18, 2020, 08:50:44 pm
You could defend America.  I'm sure if you volunteers to man the tiles on the front lines, the other tribes would let you.  You don't have win those battles: You just have to stall long enough for the attacking alliance to break up.  If every tile has to be fought over, rather than have many of them being "gimmes", that should stall things a bit. If somebody, even somebody truly hated, were to do this, many would rally to help them.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on May 19, 2020, 07:35:20 am
Picked up the game the other day, first chance to play!

Do y'all recommend the realms or community servers?
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Great Order on May 19, 2020, 08:24:41 am
I might be interested in this at some point. PTW.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on May 19, 2020, 09:21:10 am
Also @Folly, which clan are you with???

EDIT: For anyone curious, the game is surprisingly polished. For one the optimization (playing largely solo) is way better than say, Conan. Really HQ Mount & Blade-esque combat (multi-directional attacking and blocking). Pretty fun crafting too, though you best be sure you can move any base you want to make as server shards (or "oases") periodically burn up as the map shifts eastwards. Having played solo and having a blast, I think the game definitely shines best with friends, having a crewed walker or two just seems infinitely more fun and efficient than doing it all yourself.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on May 20, 2020, 05:02:05 am
It's patch time!
The patch being deployed right now will start the process of burning old oases and generating new ones. Also we will be seeing special nodes pop up with meteor strikes, containing iron for players to fight over, and unlocking access to the higher tech levels. We will also see a return of the Nurrs, giant desert-cats who got an unintended buff in the last patch, allowing them to 1-shot boats and prompting devs to disable them until a fix could be implemented.
And some of the new maps will feature caps to the number of clan members allowed at one time. This change is intended to give smaller clans a chance to play without getting zerged by giant mega-clans. The devs acknowledge that mega-clans will still find workarounds, but say this is only a first iteration of their plans and there is more to come.


After the dramatic events in my last post, our Clan leader made the call that we would be merging into another, particularly disreputable Clan. I've avoided using my Clan name in the past to discourage unwanted attention, but I don't mind saying now that this decision spelled the end of the Walker Reclamation Agency. A small group of his close friends merged along with our leader, but almost everyone else decided to seek new homes elsewhere.

Two of the subcommanders from WRA grabbed up most of the members of my team and one other team, along with some of their friends from past lives, and formed a new Clan, of which I am now a part. We're somewhat fewer in number, but honestly those who were picked are among the most talented and dependable contributors, taken from the sea of tourists and selfish soloists and spies that made up most of WRA. And our new leadership is much more dedicated towards forming alliances, carefully picking enemies, and ensuring that all of us work together as a cohesive and functional unit. I'm much more satisfied and enjoying my playtime more since the transition.

We managed to lay low for a few days, hiding in the shadow of a larger stronger ally, while we built our new fleet and gathered a surplus of supplies for when that fleet inevitably gets destroyed. But last night we learned that a neighbor sharing the tile with us was sitting on top of a particularly lucrative source of high-quality materials. We attempted to negotiate, offering fair trade for some of their quality materials. In exchange they demanded a large sum of fire arrows.
Now, fire arrows are only used for two things, and those are burning open enemy boats and bases. This offer was interpreted as an insult. So we decided to use a small fraction of the fire arrows they requested to instead burn down their base and simply take the resources. Our neighbors did their best to consume, destroy, or flee with as many of their resources as possible, but we still finished the fight with boxes full of enough plunder to build several new high-quality warboats.
Later that day our neighbors called in some of their allies, and together they chased us off the tile we were calling home. But that tile was days away from burning anyway, and we already had plans for where we would move next.


Regarding the Chinese threat, we've seen a few scouting parties, but no major movements yet. Our assumption is that they are waiting until after the burn begins, so that they can focus their resources on the newer and more valuable maps.
The American mega-clans have not come together in quite the way we might have hoped, but we have seen a noticeable increase in non-aggression pacts between the big clans and smaller clans, as everyone attempts to solidify their power as much as possible before the coming storm.
My own clan has certainly benefited from this, forming a pact with a mega-clan that once destroyed anyone not under their umbrella, and settling within their territory where few outside aggressors dare to invade. Our benefactors are however on the front lines with China, and so circumstances may be changing very quickly.


Quote from: Urist McScoopbeard on May 19, 2020, 09:21:10 am
I think the game definitely shines best with friends, having a crewed walker or two just seems infinitely more fun and efficient than doing it all yourself.

Absolutely agree, and I feel this merits explaining a few things about resources.

First of all, there is a medium-sized boat called the Toboggan. Noteworthy features of the Toboggan are that the cargo hold can store up to 1000 items per slot, and the Toboggan does not slow down significantly when weighed down by heavy cargo. These aspects make the Toboggan ideal for gathering resources.

Secondly, the Forager and Lumberjack modules. When installed on a walker, these modules allow it to harvest trees and plants that it walks over, respectively. A single module will harvest one or two resources per node trampled, which is pretty bad. The modules can be stacked however, and with 10 of each a boat can easily accumulate thousands of resources per minute. There is another module which speeds up the processing of workstations built on deck; ten of this module allows for nigh instantaneous crafting, so you can rapidly convert the wood and fiber you are amassing into shafts, ropes, cloth, and other subcomponents.

However, boats can only equip a limited number of modules, preventing you from making one boat that does everything. The way to surpass this limit is with quality resources! A high quality boat can hold more modules, so install a rangefinder and start seeking out those quality materials!

And of course all of this is a lot of work for one person, so ideally you should find a crew who can split up the tasks, and then share the profits when it all comes together.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Knave on May 20, 2020, 10:09:09 am
Must... resist... temptation... to buy ANOTHER game!
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on May 20, 2020, 09:04:11 pm
Also, running with a very chill NA - East clan now, in case anyone DOES pick up the game (and is from the region or doesnt mind migrating). PM for deets.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on May 21, 2020, 03:28:35 am
Previously, sawblades attached to toolpods could not harvest quality materials. Last night's patch fixed that. Furthermore, there appears to be no cap on the quality level they can farm. My clan threw together a couple of q80 sawblades using the materials we looted in that previous battle, and spent all night tonight driving around harvesting huge amounts of wood well over q100.

This is going to make it much easier to build high quality warboats. Finding modules to put on those boats will become the new main bottleneck to making them ready for battle.


EDIT: Hotfix tonight says they've added a cap to quality harvested by sawblades. We've yet to learn what that cap is, but I expect they will still be useful.
EDIT 2: Sawblade has been confirmed to function like a tier4 hatchet, with a softcap of quality 80.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on May 24, 2020, 06:58:18 pm
Last few days have been all about the new iron maps.
It's fun sailing in with a small crew, frantically dashing between iron ore rocks and harvesting them, and more often than not clashing with another boat trying to do the same thing and either walking away with all their iron or letting them walk away with ours. Mostly the former.
And the new iron tools are pretty great, giving roughly twice the resources of the previous tier. Weapons and armor are similarly changing the game, offering a significant advantage to those who have them against those who do not. It's a very exciting time to be in the desert.


Today the major alliances did manage to come together briefly for a common cause; wiping one of their own. Team Casualty got a reputation for not playing well with others, and today it was agreed that basically everyone in North America would turn on them all at once. Here is a screenshot of just one of their tiles. There were more than a dozen that looked like this all at once.

(https://puu.sh/Fz8X2/020a4ad450.jpg)
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Great Order on May 25, 2020, 08:18:59 am
Were they the clan that's been accused of using dupes and cheats in large numbers?
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on May 25, 2020, 03:24:23 pm
Nope. Those are the Russians. They recently had some drama which resulted in a split, and some of their members ended up posting youtube videos showing how the duping exploit works, and verifying that their entire clan was benefiting heavily from it. In response the dev's banned only 2 people. This has created considerable uproar from the wider community, as many people are currently calling for the entire Russian clan to be zero'd, and some are accusing them of having inside connections with the development team.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Aoi on May 25, 2020, 03:31:44 pm
Quote from: Folly on May 24, 2020, 06:58:18 pm
Today the major alliances did manage to come together briefly for a common cause; wiping one of their own. Team Casualty got a reputation for not playing well with others, and today it was agreed that basically everyone in North America would turn on them all at once. Here is a screenshot of just one of their tiles. There were more than a dozen that looked like this all at once.

(https://puu.sh/Fz8X2/020a4ad450.jpg)

I'm guessing that one red dot in the corner is the guy from Team Casualty while everybody else is trashing their place?
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on May 25, 2020, 09:21:27 pm
Quote from: Great Order on May 25, 2020, 08:18:59 am
Were they the clan that's been accused of using dupes and cheats in large numbers?

TC, CSTG, and OwO have all been accused of dupes n cheats methinks
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on May 25, 2020, 09:55:28 pm
Well yeah, pretty much every major alliances has dipped their toe into the cheating pool. But most of them were smart enough to restrict it to expendable sub-clans, most of which got zero'd in the last big patch. The Russians were the only ones allowing their main force to benefit directly and extensively from dupes, and also the only ones not to experience significant repercussions from doing so.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on May 29, 2020, 03:38:51 pm
One of my clan members having some fun with zero-to-hero on an enemy tile. (https://youtu.be/tAPiYMxS7aU)
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on June 04, 2020, 06:57:13 pm
Since I started playing LO I've had an issue with graphics stuttering badly when there's more than a dozen or so people around me. I tried upgrading my RAM from 8GB to 16GB and that helped, but did not completely eliminate the issue. Then I updated my graphics drivers. Last time I updated was in 2018, so I was overdue. Why does NVIDIA make it such a pita to update? Anyway, now my frames are buttery smooth. So if anyone else is having stuttering issues, I recommend updating graphics drivers.


My clan's patron mega-clan, OwO, have been busy fighting the good fight against the Chinese. Most of the mega-clans have now agreed to non-aggression pacts while the Chinese remain a threat, but there are still many smaller American clans who persist at fighting with their own. While OwO has been distracted on one front they've been losing territory on another. They don't particularly care about the Proxy's which they don't have time to collect loot from anyway, but losing ground to random small clans looks bad on the world map; ceding ground to one of their allies looks much less bad. So about a week ago they tasked my clan with going around and reclaiming tiles that they have lost.

This has had a major impact on the pace of events for my clan. We are busy attacking proxy's. We are busy defending when those clans and their allies retaliate. It's basically nonstop fighting for us.
As a farmer who has been drafted into these fights, I've been somewhat surprised to see that we have been able to keep our boats fully stocked. We are sustaining almost entirely on the supplies that we plunder from enemies we defeat in battle. It's a very new and exciting change in gameplay style for me.

As we consistently triumph over enemies with equal numbers, and as our clan name spreads across the world map, other clans have taken notice. Our diplomats have negotiated with clans we defeated and several of them are now our allies, regularly joining us in battle and fighting alongside us. A few other clans have merged into ours, roughly doubling our numbers over the last week. Again, very exciting times.


Here are a few videos I found of OwO wiping CSTG and their allies:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1cX8KtWl1eriYyZG01eGWHogzA-h-9pjQ (https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1cX8KtWl1eriYyZG01eGWHogzA-h-9pjQ)
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on June 27, 2020, 06:57:15 pm
CSTG(chinese mega-clan) has currently disappeared from LO, as they are currently mourning the RL death of their leader of the last 15 years.

They have however vowed to return on July 4th, to attack the Americas with 60 fully manned warships.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: EuchreJack on June 28, 2020, 05:47:14 pm
Quote from: Folly on June 27, 2020, 06:57:15 pm
CSTG(chinese mega-clan) has currently disappeared from LO, as they are currently mourning the RL death of their leader of the last 15 years.

They have however vowed to return on July 4th, to attack the Americas with 60 fully manned warships.

Hm, I didn't know this game was 15 years old...
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: Folly on June 28, 2020, 09:21:48 pm
Mega-clans like this one often migrate between games. I know CSTG were big in Atlas and Ark before LO...not sure what they were doing before that.
Title: Re: Last Oasis Clan - The Dune Dwellers
Post by: EuchreJack on June 29, 2020, 01:09:42 pm
Thanks for the explanation.  I was quite confused.